Chapter 8
Attitude Change and Interactive Communications
By Michael R. Solomon
Consumer Behavior
Buying, Having, and Being
• What activities did Carrie engage in through
the Launch CD/ROM?
• Why would Carrie perceive the commercials as “cool”?
• Why was Carrie receptive to watching
commercials and market research?
• Do you think the commercials that she
chose were more persuasive than random ads?
Changing Attitudes
Through Communication
•
Persuasion:
– An active attempt to change attitudes
– Basic psychological principles that influence
Decisions, Decisions:
Tactical Communications Options
• Who will be the source of the message?
– Man, woman, child, celebrity, athlete?
• How should message be constructed?
– Emphasize negative consequences?
– Direct comparison with competition? – Present a fantasy?
• What media will transmit the message?
– Print ad, television, door-to-door, Web site?
• What are the characteristics of the target
market?
The Elements of Communication
•
Communications Model:
– Specifies that a number of elements are necessary
for communication to be achieved.
• Source: Where the communication originates
• Message: Content of the message itself
• Receivers: Interpret the message
• Feedback: Must be received by the source
An Updated View:
Interactive Communications
• Permission Marketing:
– Based on the idea that a marketer will be more successful in persuading consumers who have agreed to let him or her try.
• Uses and Gratifications Theory:
– Argues that consumers are an active, goal-directed audience that draws on mass media as a resource to satisfy needs.
• Who’s In Charge of the Remote?
– Technological and social developments are turning the passive consumer into interactive “partners.”
• Levels of Interactive Response
– First-order response: A product offer that directly yields a transaction.
The Source
• Source effects: A message will have different effects
if communicated by a different source.
• Two important source characteristics:
– Credibility and Attractiveness
• Source credibility: A source’s perceived expertise,
objectivity, or trustworthiness.
• Sleeper effect: A process by which differences in
attitude change between positive sources and less positive sources seem to get erased over time.
– Dissociative cue hypothesis
The Source (cont.)
• Building Credibility: Credibility can be enhanced if the source’s qualifications are relevant to the product.
• Source Biases:
– Knowledge bias: Implies a source’s knowledge is not accurate.
– Reporting bias: When a source has the required knowledge, but the willingness to convey it is compromised
• Hype versus Buzz: The Corporate Paradox
– Corporate Paradox: The more involved a company appears
to be in the dissemination of news about its products, the less credible it becomes.
• Buzz: Word of mouth, viewed as authentic
Source Attractiveness
•
Source Attractiveness:
– Refers to the source’s perceived social value
•
“What is Beautiful Is Good”:
– A physically attractive source tends to facilitate
attitude change.
– Social adaptation perspective
• Assumes that the perceiver will weight
Source Attractiveness in Ads
• To stimulate demand
for milk, an industry trade group tapped a huge range of
Star Power: Celebrities as
Communications Sources
• Cultural meanings:
– Symbolizes important categories such as status, social class, gender, age, and personality type.
– Match up hypothesis: The celebrity’s image and that of the product are similar
– Q rating (Q stands for quality) considers two factors:
• Consumers’ level of familiarity with a name
• The number of respondents who indicate that a person, program, or character is a favorite.
• Nonhuman Endorsers:
– Avatar: The manifestation of a Hindu deity in superhuman
Celebrity Endorsers
• Omega uses tennis
• What cultural meaning does Drew Carey embody? Is he a good choice to endorse this product? Why or why not?
Avatars
• A Swedish firm called
The Message
•
Sending The Message:
– Framed: Message in the picture is strongly related
to the copy
– Chunk: Visual images allow the receiver to group
information at the time of encoding
•
Vividness:
– Pictures and words can differ in vividness
– Powerful descriptions or graphics command
Sending the Message
•
Repetition:
– Mere Exposure: People tend to like things that are more familiar to them, even if they are not keen on them initially.
– Habituation: Consumer no longer pays attention to
the stimulus because of boredom or fatigue
– Two-factor Theory: Explains the fine line between
familiarity and boredom.
• Positive affect: Increases familiarity, reduces uncertainty
Constructing the Argument
•
One- Versus Two-Sided Arguments:
– Supportive argument: Presents only positive
arguments
– Two-sided message: Presents positive and negative
info
•
Drawing Conclusions
•
Comparative Advertising:
– A strategy in which a message compares two or
Types of Message Appeals
• Emotional Versus Rational Appeals:
– Choice depends on the nature of the product and the type of
relationship that consumers have with it
– Recall of ad content tends to be better for “thinking” rather
than “feeling” ads
• Sexual Appeals:
– Sex draws attention to the ad but may be counterproductive
unless the product itself is related to sex
• Humorous Appeals:
– Distraction: Humorous ads inhibit the consumer from
Emotional vs. Rational
• These ads demonstrate rational versus emotional message appeals. At the time of the initial ad
Sexual Appeals
• An ad employing a
Humor Appeals
• This ad relies upon humor to communicate the message
Types of Message Appeals (cont.)
•
Fear Appeals:
– Emphasize the negative consequences that can
occur unless the consumer changes a behavior or an attitude
– Used mostly in social marketing contexts
– Effective only when the threat is moderate and a
solution is presented
Fear Appeals
• Life insurance
companies often use a fear appeal to motivate consumers to buy
• In this
advertisement for Big Red chewing gum, what type of advertising appeal is being used?
• Is this an effective use of this type of appeal?
Types of Message Appeals (conc.)
• The Message as Art Form: Metaphors Be with
You:
– Metaphor: Involves placing two dissimilar objects in a
close relationship such that “A is B”
– Simile: Compares two objects “A is like B”
– Resonance: A form of presentation that combines a play on
words with a relevant picture
• Forms of Story Presentation:
– Drama: Attempt to be experiential, involving the audience emotionally
– Lecture: A speech where the source speaks directly to the
audience to inform and persuade them
– Transformational Advertising: Consumer associates the
Personification
• Many products
Advertising Metaphors
• This Chinese detergent ad uses a handcuff metaphor as it urges the viewer, “Free yourself from the burden of
The Source vs. The Message:
Sell the Steak or the Sizzle?
• Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM):
– Assumes that once a customer receives a message, he or
she begins to process it.
• The Central Route to Persuasion:
– The processing route taken under conditions of high
involvement
– Cognitive Responses
• The Peripheral Route to Persuasion
– The processing route taken under conditions of low
involvement
Support for the ELM
• The ELM has received a lot of research
support
• Example: Typical ELM Study
– Thought listing
– Independent variables:
• Message-processing involvement
• Argument strength
• Source characteristics
– Findings:
• High involvement subjects had more cognitions
• High involvement subjects swayed by powerful arguments
Elaboration: Issue relevant thinking
High Elaboration
• Extensive IP
• Extensive time
• Extensive mental capacity
• Extensive motivation
• Controlled thinking • Deep thinking
• Systematic thinking
• Effortful analysis
Low Elaboration
• Limited IP
• Limited time
• Limited mental capacity
• Limited motivation
• Automatic thinking
• Shallow thinking
• Heuristic thinking
ELM
• Persuasion = f (Elaboration)
• Elaboration = f (Motivation, Ability) • Motivation
Involvement
Need for cognition
• Ability
Persuasion with ELM
Target: High Elaboration Strategy: Central Route
Persuasion occurs by:
• Careful thinking
• Thoughtful analysis
• Deep consideration
• True merits of info
Target: Low Elaboration Strategy: Peripheral Route
Persuasion occurs by:
• Simple cues
• Irrelevant info
• Hedonistic content
